A different kind of repair

This set of photos shows a "repair" to a piece I had lying around for ... 40 years?  It was among the first of the antique radios I owned, bought in my mid teens at a flea market in the Ottawa Ontario area. It was cheap, even then, probably because the chassis was soooo baaddd with mouse dirt that even the mice wouldn't live in it. The cabinet had been glued and tacked together and was about to fall into three pieces. It had been covered with some sort of very hard finish and no amount of stripping (on the radio ... not me) was helping. About 10 years ago a friend who collects radios showed me a chassis he had that was lacking a cabinet ... by some miracle they were the same, so we agreed to use his chassis and my cabinet. Here's the work we had to do. No, it isn't done with an attempt to replicate the original veneer wood or finish. It was simply an attempt to create a useable radio from two scrap sets with an appearance that wouldn't be too displeasing  ::

1) the set - it looks solid eh?  ... it wasn't  :



2) the back :



3) The only way to prep the body and see where all the tacks and patches were :



4) Just one of the repairs that appeared :



5) You can't have too many clamps :



6)  Gluing up a sheet of veneer to install :



7) First veneer on and ready for the second sheet :



 The second sheet in place :



9) The openings trimmed out with a trim router :



10) The trim strip slots being routered out :



11) The cabinet with the base stain before the trim strips are glued into the slots :



12) Trim strips in and the final stain done :



13) And the finished cabinet with a coat of lacquer on and rubbed out to remove the piano finish gloss :

Nice job. I wouldn't put a primitive finnish on. The grain of wood you used is very beautiful
Great job.....

Nice! Lots of workmanship

VERY VERY nice job--

Beautiful job! I like the grain in this veneer better than what it originally had. I have the same model in nice original condition and i like yours better. Thanks for sharing!

Wow, thank you for the replies!!  Just for interest's sake ... I used Beech paper backed veneer for the radio body and Maple paper backed veneer to make the strips for the inlay.

cheers

John